The present invention relates to improvements in apparatus for unwinding elongated strips or webs of flexible material from the cores of reels. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for unwinding elongated customer roll films from the cores of reels which are expelled from the shells of cartridges or analogous containers for photographic film.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,278 discloses an apparatus wherein a flexible endless band is caused to engage more than one-half of the outermost convolution of a roll of exposed photographic film on the core of a reel. The band is driven in a direction to unwind the film from the core and cooperates with a yieldably mounted or resilient tongue serving to divert the leader of the film from the adjacent convolution and to direct the diverted leader into a channel for advancement to a splicing station where the leader is attached to the trailing end of the previously unwound roll film. The end portions of the core of the reel are held between two coaxial bolts or between two rotary shafts so that the diverting finger must move toward the axis of the core as the diameter of the roll of film on the reel decreases as well as when a reel carrying a largerdiameter roll of exposed film is followed by a reel which carries a smaller-diameter roll. The two shafts or bolts are retracted to release the core therebetween only when the unwinding operation is completed. This reduces the output of such unwinding apparatus because the bolts or shafts can engage the next-following core only when the preceding reel is removed from the unwinding station, i.e., when the unwinding of the entire roll of film from the preceding reel is completed.